All Dressed Up
by thecivilunrest
Summary: No matter how she was dressed, Stephanie was always going to be beautiful to him, he realized. Stephanie/Damian For Claire.


**Fandom: **DCU, specifically Batman.

**Story Title: **All Dressed Up

**Summary: **No matter how she was dressed, Stephanie was always going to be beautiful to him, he realized. For Claire.

**Character/Relationship(s): **Stephanie Brown/Damian Wayne

**Rating: **K+

**Warnings: **Two or three instances of language and a mention of alcohol. Hence the plus.

**Story Word Count: **2400+

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything, obviously.**  
Prompt: **"He/she cleans up well," from prettylittlefishy.

**Notes: **For Claire, who I promised a Wally/Artemis drabble and got this instead, haha. I hope you like it, dear!

_All Dressed Up_

By all accounts, Stephanie Brown was _not _a Wayne Gala kind of girl. She was always more of a hey-let's-go-rent-a-movie-and-wear-sweatpants-with-no-make-up kind of girl. That was what she had done the last time that she'd had a free night. They are very few and far between, nights off, but when she does have them she likes to relish in them, to roll around in the sensation of being completely _normal_, even if it is for only a day.

So, when she _does _have a free night, she'd rather not have to spend them dressed up and surrounded by the obscenely rich. Though, this could be considered work, since she'd gotten the invitation from Bruce Wayne himself, and that meant, in no uncertain terms, _come_. He hadn't necessarily written that on the envelope, but the message had been loud and clear.

So she came, wearing high heels that had looked really good in the store but were horrible for her poor feet. A night on rooftops had to be better than them than these monstrosities.

Steph took a deep breath when she saw Bruce walk by, and immediately wished that she hadn't. The dress—yet another thing that had looked better in the store, on a hanger—constricted her ribs and she couldn't breathe for a moment. She had no idea how her sisters back in the day had dealt with corsets; God bless them.

The Batman, in his Bruce Wayne persona which was all charming smiles and money oozing from him like puss out of sores, completely ignored her as we came by her. Which was understandable, of course. It wasn't like he'd never done it before, and besides, Bruce Wayne had no reason to know who nobody Stephanie Brown was. Which, of course, why it was ridiculous that she'd had to be here.

Tim was around somewhere, of course he was, and she couldn't help but wish that something would happen, something big enough so that they'd have to fight side-by-side. At least then she'd be able to take off her shoes.

.

The hors d'oeuvres that the waiter had on his tray as he passed by the corner Stephanie had been standing in didn't look like something that she could pronounce, or like anything that she'd ever seen before. But the risk was worth it; she was hungry dammit. Didn't rich people eat normal things? There was nothing at all wrong with spray cheese and crackers.

Steph had just snatched a few of the unidentified edible objects, along with a napkin and given a quick _thank you_ to the waiter before she heard a snide, "You _would _be with the food." A sniff. "Tt. I should have known, _Fatgirl_."

"Hey," Steph answered, after stuffing one of the _things _into her mouth. They were actually quite delicious, she decided after a few chews. "Calories are very comforting for the soul, and my soul needs comforting right now." She shoved another one in her mouth, figuring this was all the dinner that she was going to get that night, seeing as how it was almost one in the morning and these were one of the few things that had been offered all night.

The wealthy; evidently they didn't eat _or _sleep. Though, in Batman's case, those two things were taken to the extreme.

"And put on your _shoes_, harlot!" he exclaimed when he saw her bare feet, the horrid shoes discarded behind them. "These gatherings are to celebrate Gotham and my father's company, as well as his employees. Not to behave like a classless, tasteless idiot."

"It's not like I'm in the middle of the dance floor. I'm standing in a corner which, by the way, was completely snob free before you arrived," and conveniently where the caterer's food trays were set up; her stomach and aching feet had led her here, "and no one was objecting." She shoved the last of her hors d'oeuvres into her mouth before she could _really _get into it with Robin. Sure, it'd been five years since they'd first met, and they'd both matured, but she still wanted to bash the kid's head in sometimes.

Damian's snooty facade twitched, for just a second, before he continued, "I _was _going to ask you to dance, despite the fact that I would be endangering my toes, but clearly you are not only incompetent but also ill equipped."

She finally glanced at him, then. This wasn't a joke, he wouldn't have asked her if he wasn't absolutely serious about dancing with her. It was only when she began assessing him that she realized that he had grown _up_. She had to lift her head to look him in the eye.

Steph frowned. When had _that _happened? Sure he still sounded like the insufferable ten-year-old that he'd once been, but the puberty fairy had visited him in the night and hit him over the head. Hard. Which had obviously made his progress speed up, seeing as he was only fifteen but already looked legal. Superior genetics, and all that jazz.

He obviously had no idea how to use his new looks to his advantage, however. Damian thought that insulting a girl was the best way to get her to dance with him. He had _no_ chance in the teenage dating world.

"I would _love_ to dance with you," Stephanie gushed, which made Damian start. He hadn't expected her to react with such force. "I am perfectly competent, promise. Equipped," she looks down at her poor feet, who are already screaming at her about having to put the death traps back on, "not so much. But I can get like that in a flash."

"Tt. I hope so." He pauses, before adding quickly, as though if he doesn't say the words fast he won't be able to say them at all, "I would dance with you barefoot, of course. If we weren't here, or in front of anyone important."

She beamed at him before strapping the torture devices back on. "I'm pretty sure that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

.x.

Damian Wayne had grown to loathe parties of any sort. The fact that his older brother Dick loved them, and loved to throw them no matter how impromptu and unnecessary they might be, did not help this situation.

Damian especially hated Wayne Galas. He knew they were necessary, especially for a Wayne and a part of the legacy that he had to uphold, but that didn't make him _like _them anymore. They were just a torture that he endured twice a year, at Christmas and in the summer because they were important.

He was just shy of twenty-one, which meant legal, which meant dates, which meant _marriage. _Marriage to a Wayne meant money, and that also meant that women his own age, and appallingly younger and older than him, were buzzing around them like flies whenever they had the chance.

It was very annoying, to say the least, and if another insipid woman came up to him and asked him if he'd tasted the champagne or was enjoying the evening he might just get out one of the knives he'd had in his pocket and let it go for a test run.

He'd never quite gotten over the stage of wanting to stab his way through his indignation.

Swigging yet another glass of champagne—because alcohol was another way that everyone got to get out of these things unscathed, and not even just because of his violent ways—before setting it down, he saw a familiar head of blonde hair.

There were lots of blondes at the Gala, some more bottled than others, but only Stephanie would have let her hair down in that precise way, letting it tumble down her shoulders just so. Every other woman here had their hair done up in an elaborate style, probably by someone else, so seeing her was a breath of fresh, natural air.

And besides, he'd spent a lot of time... admiring her from behind, back when he was Robin and she was Batgirl. He'd remember that back anywhere.

"Stephanie," he said, perhaps louder than he intended when she jumped slightly as she turned around. The alcohol, it must have been.

She smiled at him, then. "Damian." She opened her mouth to say something else, but he couldn't hear a word she was saying. He was too busy staring at her.

He wondered what had changed, because something must have. Otherwise he wouldn't have been staring at her, noticing the way the eggplant that she wore contrasted with her fair skin, how every ringlet of her hair shone in the chandeliered light. Her eyes were bright blue, surrounded with smokey make-up that she didn't really need, and her whole face glowed as she smiled. She was radiant, tonight.

The last time he had seen her at a Gala she had been uncomfortable and barefoot, eating in the corner of the room and he'd been fifteen years old and an idiot mooning over her with a crush far larger than Gotham's city limits.

He'd thought he'd gotten over that flight of fancy, but obviously not. He didn't know how he could have ever thought that, not when she was standing in front of him, smiling.

When he noticed he was staring he regained his train of thought, as well as use of his tongue. "Would you like to dance?" he asked, and watched as she raised her eyebrows. The alcohol. "Save me from the women who would like nothing more than to sleep with me for my father's money and fame."

"Oh poor yoooou," Stephanie cooed, her smile growing larger. She was laughing at him. "'Women are just throwing themselves at me, and I just don't know what to dooooo.'" As a person with perfect imitation abilities, Damian was offended by the way she turned her voice into a baritone to get the tone of his. Besides, he'd never drag out his vowels like that.

"Stephanie."

"Okay, fine. But you owe me one. These shoes are killer."

As the next strand of the song began, Damian led Stephanie to the dance floor. "I don't understand why you wear shoes like that if you _know _that they're going to make your feet sore." Though they did make her legs look quite nice, he had to admit.

"For the same reason that you wear a jockstrap when you run amuck the night." She paused at his face. "For _protection_. A girl never knows when she might need something sharp to step on someone's foot with."

A laugh bubbled in his throat, and he realized that he'd gladly spend the rest of his life laughing with Stephanie Brown.

The thought came at him like a bullet, hitting him so squarely in the chest that he felt like he couldn't breathe for a moment. Of course, this wasn't as sudden as his reaction made it out to be, but it was the first time that he'd ever let himself think the words so clearly.

But he continued on like nothing had happened, like he hadn't just realized that he might have been something like in love with Stephanie Brown. Fatgirl, or, recently, Fat_woman_. He'd known her for eleven years of his life, eleven years that seemed impossibly short now.

"They could be weapons," he supposed. "Especially if there was something hidden within them or they are sharp at the end. Perhaps that is why Poison Ivy wears them so often."

"Probably. Or it could just be because the girl has style. And really, really strong and healthy feet."

He was disappointed to hear the song end, the final strands of the last stanza floating over the dancing crowd.

Damian didn't want to let her go, to lose her in the crowd and have women surround him again, leaving her alone. He just wanted to keep her here, with him, and he had no idea how to do that in this sort of setting. Neither of them were as comfortable in their civilian skins as they were in the spandex and black of their masked selves.

Before he could lose the nerve, he grabbed her arm as she turned away from him. "I want to go out with you," he found himself saying, and tried to regain control of himself. He hadn't been with many women, and certainly none that he'd felt this strongly before.

Stephanie raised an eyebrow at him, clearly disbelieving. At that moment, he didn't care that he might seem like a younger brother to him, or that he was too young, or that she was considered by almost everyone that attended this event to be the wrong person for him. If he didn't at least try, just this one time, he might never get her and lose her to someone else, and that thought was unbearable. "Tonight. After this is over. If you'd like to... patrol with me." His hesitancy annoyed him; even with his superior vocabulary he could never say what really _needed _to be said.

Understanding dawned over her face, and she squeezed his hand. "Of course. After this we can go play tag on the rooftops, and then grab some coffee. It's a date." She winked at him, before walking away.

.

She'd beat him to the cave, already dressed in her Batwoman costume, minus the mask. She was adjusting it as he came in, similarly dressed as Batman.

The mantle was new, Dick having given up being Batman long ago and his father finally letting go of the cowl. It had taken being partially paralyzed on the left side of his face due to stress and what appeared to be a heart defect. Caring for Gotham for all of these years and hardly seeing a change had finally broken his damn heart.

"C'mon, B-man," she told him, beating him to the Batmobile as well. "The night is young and so are we."

Her smile was infectious—she only looked like this in costume. It was the most beautiful that he'd ever seen her, even though he'd just thought that only a few hours ago at the Gala. No matter how she was dressed, Stephanie was always going to be beautiful to him, he realized.

"I think that you mean _me_, actually," he drawled.

Even though he couldn't tell under the lenses, he was pretty sure that Stephanie had just rolled her eyes. "Well let's go before my arthritis kicks in," she told him. "I wouldn't want to slow you down."

"You couldn't if you tried."


End file.
